by Neal Heaton
Control what you can control.
As a pitcher, you have a lot on your plate. Staying healthy, providing length in your outings, executing quality pitches, controlling the running game, fielding your position. But once the ball leaves your hand, the rest is out of your control. There’s going to be times your teammates don’t make the plays, umpires make awful calls and your offense doesn’t score runs.
Those are all part of the game. As frustrating as it may be – it’s baseball. And as a high schooler, you are not playing with professionals behind you so they are going to make their share of errors.
I’ve noticed this more than ever this year – with pitchers getting frustrated with their defense and umpires and looking to make excuses. At the end of the day, if you’re a talented pitcher you should be able to strike out enough batters to negate it. I’ve had parents from some of the best pitchers around complaining to me when their son would give up hits and blame it on someone instead of taking the initiative and striking someone out.
Control what you can control. Keep that positive attitude.
When I got traded to Minnesota, there was a game I pitched against Dennis Martinez. I lost 1-0. Ken Hrbeck told me after the game, if you lose another game like that I will give you my paycheck. Sure enough, five days later I pitched against Dennis Martinez AGAIN and again I lost 1-0. Ken never gave me that paycheck.
Dennis and I ended up on the same team together in Montreal and he laughed at me about it.
This is what Jacob deGrom went through for basically two years and still won back-to-back Cy Youngs.
It’s just part of the game.
As a young pitcher, particularly in high school, college coaches want to know how you handle adversity. So whether you show up your infielder after an error or an umpire after a bad call, it’s something that can negatively impact how you are viewed.
All you can do is refocus, get back on the mound and execute a quality pitch.
Editor’s Note: Neal gives individual pitching lessons at Matt Guiliano’s Play like a Pro.
